Forgiveness

Starting at a young age, we teach children to forgive one another when they experience hurt or disagreement. As we grow up, we start to recognize that forgiveness can be easier to talk about than to actually do. What if it hurts, or the other person isn’t even sorry? Join Groundwork for our series, “Forgiveness,” as we examine the concept of forgiveness in both the Old and New Testaments to understand what it is and what it is not. With Scripture as our guide, we’ll learn about God’s forgiveness, how to discern when we need to forgive, and how to forgive even when it’s hard. 

The Trouble with Forgiveness

The idea of forgiveness is wonderful when we’re on the receiving end of it, but when we’re asked to offer forgiveness, we encounter numerous stumbling blocks. What if we don’t want things to go back to the way they were? What if it doesn’t feel safe? Most of us are all too familiar with the quip, “forgive and forget.” While that seems like a great way to move forward, it oversimplifies forgiveness. Forgiveness is necessary only when a grievance or hurt has occurred. While in some cases it might be okay to just “forget it,” in many cases forgetting ignores the offended party's right to be offended. There’s a gravity and weight to forgiveness that forgetting overlooks. It also ignores issues of safety and whether the offender is even remorseful.

We may also expect more from forgiveness than we ought. The expectation that forgiveness automatically means restoration of a relationship, or that everything in a relationship would go back to the way things were before the offense occurred. It sometimes expects a restoration of trust that has not been earned. And sometimes, there are genuinely hard circumstances like a death that make things we’d normally expect to experience with forgiveness impossible. 

Forgiveness in the Bible

Yet in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God to forgive us just as we forgive others, and the apostle Paul commands and encourages believers to forgive each other. They aren’t asking us if we want to; they’re instructing us to offer forgiveness, which tells us forgiveness is more than a technical transaction. It impacts our spiritual life. So what exactly are they expecting from us? 

The main thrust of forgiveness in Scripture is to forgive as God has forgiven us. God wants us to surrender our right to pronounce guilt, pass sentence, and harbor resentment. Whether we’re studying the Old or New Testament, or thinking about forgiveness in our relationship with God or with each other, we discover that all forgiveness starts with God. He knows we can’t do this on our own; we need the Holy Spirit to help us do it at all.

I invite you to gain a better understanding of the biblical concept of forgiveness through our Groundwork series, “Forgiveness”:

• The Biblical Meaning of Forgiveness - Exodus 34:4-9, Matthew 6:12-15, Psalm 51:1-9, Hebrews 4:14-16, Colossians 1:9-14, and 1 John 1:5-10
• What it Means to Forgive and Why it Matters - Ephesians 4:31-32, Colossians 3:12-13, Matthew 18:21-35, Romans 12:17-21, and Psalm 13:1-2
• When Forgiveness is Complicated - 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Micah 7:18-19, Luke 17:3-4, 1 Peter 2:21-23, Psalm 62:5-8, and Philippians 4:6-7

Together, we’ll learn from Jesus, Paul, the Psalmist, and more what forgiveness is, what it is not, and what is involved in the act of forgiveness; then we’ll see how Scripture helps us address the hard questions that arise when life situations make forgiveness complicated.